The present invention relates to a heating/cooling system comprising a receiving room in which hot air and cold air can be switched to be used.
As shown in FIG. 35, a heating/cooling system of this type has conventionally comprised a storage room 101 partitioned into a cooling chamber 102 and a heating chamber 103 by an insulated wall, and a machine room 109 arranged below the storage room 101. The machine room 109 accommodates a compressor 111, a gas cooler 112, a capillary tube 116 as pressure reducing means, and the like, which constitute a refrigerant circuit 110 with an evaporator 117. An electric heater 180 is installed in the heating chamber 103. Air heated by the electric heater 180 is blown into the heating chamber 103 by a fan 128, whereby the heating chamber 103 is heated.
Now, referring to FIG. 35, an operation of a conventional heating/cooling system 400 will be described. The fan 128 is started by a control device (not shown). When power is supplied to the electric heater 180, air heated by the electric heater 180 is circulated in the heating chamber 103 by the fan 128. Accordingly, the inside of the heating chamber 103 is heated.
The control device starts running of a fan 127, and simultaneously starts a driving element (not shown) of the compressor 111. Thus, a low-pressure refrigerant gas is sucked into a cylinder of a compression element (not shown) of the compressor 111 and compressed to become a high-temperature and high-pressure refrigerant gas, and discharged to the gas cooler 112.
After heat is released from the refrigerant gas by the gas cooler 112, the refrigerant gas passes through an internal heat exchanger 145 to enter the capillary tube 116. The pressure thereof is reduced through the tube, and the refrigerant gas flows into the evaporator 117. A refrigerant is evaporated here, and absorbs heat from ambient air to exhibit a cooling effect. It should be noted that the air cooled by the evaporation of the refrigerant at the evaporator 117 is circulated in the cooling chamber 102 by running the fan 127 to cool the inside of the cooling chamber 102. Thus, according to the conventional heating/cooling system, the inside of the heating chamber 103 is heated by the electric heater 180, and the cooling chamber 102 is cooled by the evaporator 117 of the refrigerant circuit 110 (e.g., see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 6-18156).
Furthermore, a heating/cooling system capable of using hot air and cold air in a switching manner has recently been developed, which comprises both of a heating element such as an electric heater and an evaporator installed in one receiving room, runs the heater to heat the receiving room when the receiving room is heated, stops running of the electric heater when the receiving room is cooled, starts running of a compressor, and evaporating a refrigerant by the evaporator to cool the receiving room. However, because the heating of the receiving room is carried out by the heating element such as an electric heater as described above, there is a problem that power consumption is considerably increased.